Opinion: The Truth About Love (and Sex)

Best of the Web Today columnist James Taranto offers some science-based details on what qualities women and men find attractive. Photo: Getty Images

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... back to Opinion Journal why Mary Kissel it's Valentine's day today ... so our thoughts naturally turn salon and the received wisdom ... about the sexes ... in here to comment who better to comment the best of the Web columnist ... James Taranto to chains ... talk about some received wisdom here ... our men and women attracted the same things ... no it's actually quite different of course my thoughts on on state run a social science ... ahh and the studies on what men find attractive in women are pretty uninteresting rep issued this which is expected he he you will his youthful looks hired to help the scan a seventy percent waist to hip ratio ... it's it's pretty obvious manner supplements for and about women ... women are fascinated ... by there was a study by which I'd bought by an anthropologist and had the remarks she interviewed on sixty six women and ... I came up with profiles of some two hundred and fifteen and with whom these women at Central Asian chips ... edged over the list of quality is that women find attractive in at ... the top one on the list was good looks ... that good looks mean something very different for women that it means for men and it's very individual artist so she had quotes from this one on one them said oh I fell in love with this man because he was so good looking look like a burly truck driver ... another one said ... I really go in for the balding professorial type ... it turns out that the role that sums this up is as follows according to the remarks here ... every woman responds to a man whose looks correspondent for particular stereotype of power ... so that the balding professor has pulled out there yet what about behavior ... of our what's your you find that perfect person and ... sound and say Let's appear with that person easy is it true that ... meant for missed us and women are selected ... well here's a fascinating study that answers the question in the affirmative ... Elizabeth McLin taka sociologists and again just did this study ... in which I'd she looked into a very broad sample the National longitudinal survey of youth which for the gold standard for social science research ... and by she did that the ... people who participate in the Serbian this survey are actually read it for that on their looks by the service ... so she looked at the correlation between the ... five physical attractiveness is written by the surveyors and the number of Central Park's ... ok it turns out that there is a correlation correlation is in different directions for ... both sexes ... so the more attractive man is ... the more sexual partners he ... is the more attractive woman is the short cycle partners he ... she has rather what does that tell you what all the supposition here I think it's a reasonable assumption ... is that the most attractive people in the one who's going to have the most options so their behavior their actual behavior ... will come closest to what their preferences are ... so this suggests that in fact we men have a natural preference for sex on Friday when the tabernacle preference for commitment to more attractive women are more likely to see either in committed relationships isn't about a minute left what about the effect of feminism the fact that a lot of women ... I now have professional careers it is that ... the effective in any way when it comes to dating my Whelan has because women are I don't read the study shows this important ways women tend to be hyper and states seek to make up work I believe that's just a natural instinct ... so what happens when you make a social project of elevating the status of women relative to men twelve hire women get the harder it becomes trendy woman to find a man who she is going to find attractive ... and so I guess feminism has caused a lot of unhappiness for both sexes especially here in York City the land of single ... women so many fewer out there about ten standalone or maybe it'll place you wanna come ... back to the right tone as James Taranto thank you so much being with this happy Valentine's day thank you to ...